Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Patch 5.0.4 and New Glyphs

Greetings, gold fans! Just a quick update on glyphs in patch 5.0.4. As suspected, the Ink Trader no longer trades for Blackfallow Ink, instead demanding the new Ink of Dreams (which is unobtainable until Mists launches).

Second, as was suspected, glyphs that changed but kept the same item ID were changed to the new glyph. More importantly, though, there are several new glyphs available that don't correspond to any Cataclysm item IDs. These are learned from the trainer in patch 5.0.4.

Many of these are Monk glyphs, but some are truly new glyphs for existing classes:

Glyph of Lightspring (Shimmering Ink)
Glyph of the Bear Cub (Midnight Ink)
Glyph of Fetch (Lion's Ink)
Glyph of Aspect of the Beast (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Mind Flay (Celestial Ink)

As you can see, it's a fairly even spread of inks, so it should be quite doable by anyone stockpiling inks already. If you haven't stockpiled before the patch, you're likely out of luck, as low-level herbs are few and far between on my server right now. Yours may, of course, vary.

There's also a fair number of monk glyphs added. Be careful about crafting these, though, as monks cannot be created until Mists actually launches on September 25th. Some may sell to those looking to grab those glyphs now, before demand drives prices up, but in general, you're probably better savings your inks for the more in-demand current glyphs.

In case you want to craft them anyway, the Monk glyphs that have been added are:

Glyph of Retreat (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Touch of Death (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Surging Mist (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Renewing Mists (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Zen Meditation (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Fists of Fury (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Afterlife (Jadefire Ink)
Glyph of Fighting Pose (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Flying Serpent Kick (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Crackling Tiger Lightning (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Uplift (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Sttoneskin (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Leer of the Ox (Ethereal Ink)
Glyph of Life Cocoon (Ethereal Ink)
Glyph of Sparring (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Crackling Jade Lightning (Celestial Ink)
Glyph of Touch of Karma (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Path of Blossoms (Ink of the Sea)
Glyph of Fortifying Brew (Shimmering Ink)

As you can see, if you do plan on crafting the Monk glyphs at some point, I hope you have plenty of Ink of the Sea.

So, for now, I have a couple of pieces of advice for Scribes going into this patch.

First, go to the trainer and learn the new trainer glyphs ASAP. The first person to realize those are there and start making some is going to make some serious bank. (There was probably a good half-hour before I got mine where one of my competitors was the only one with this glyph.) It may be too late for a lot of us here in the US, but hopefully this will do our European friends some good.

Second, this may be one of the few times in the glyph market where it's better not to constantly run cancel scans. The level of demand may easily be at the point where people will buy through your competition and get to yours. However, if you're canceling, that's a significant chunk of time where you're retrieving the glyphs from the mail and trying to re-post them, which is a significant amount of time they're not on the AH.

Has it been confirmed by Blizzard that this is "intentional", though? I've seen nothing as far as blue posts or tweets about it from official sources, so until I do, I'm keeping my hand out of that pot, just in case.

I noticed. I really feel like Blizzard just honestly missed this one, or doesn't really care about people like us at all. I have a feeling things being different this time was either a result of scribes who weren't prepared or people who felt they were paying too much for glyphs whining their heads off back in 4.0.1.

It's the lack of communication or any sort of clear message that bugs me, I guess. If Blizzard had left the vendors showing that they still took Blackfallow on the PTR, or communicated this intention in some way, we could've prepared better.

All in all, this change meant that while there was the increased demand, there wasn't the decrease in supply that would've truly made this another Glyphmas. Prices and sales have gone up, but not nearly as much as they might have, and I think I end up feeling like if I had known, I wouldn't have put nearly as much preparation into it.

It's like Nev always says: Despite what the goblins say, time really isn't money. You can always make more gold, but you can't make more time. I find myself wishing I could get back the massive amount of time I spent on glyph preparation.